Garden umbrellas employing solid wood poles are widely used due to both their structural strength and their aesthetic appearance of the wood pole and, in most cases, the wood canopy ribs and the connecting support ribs. One type of market umbrella is disclosed by Emanuel Dubinsky in U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,907 issued on Feb. 4, 1986 wherein a pulley wheel is mounted at the top of the wood umbrella pole while a pulley cord is attached at one end to a ribholder for raising and lowering the ribholder and opening and closing the umbrella canopy in response to the operator's action on the pulley cord. In such patent, the pulley cord is attached at its other end to a handle which is grasped and pulled by the operator. Here, the pulley cord is located outside of the wood pole and is, therefore, exposed to view.
Another type of market umbrella using a generally solid wood pole is disclosed by Emanuel Dubinsky in U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,445 issued on Feb. 19, 1991 wherein a hand crank and pulley cord arrangement opens and closes the umbrella canopy using a pulley cord which passes through a narrow channel groove formed longitudinally along the side of the wood pole. Here, the pulley cord is described as being contained in the channel groove by providing a wall member comprised of a retaining means in the form of a plastic tube or bead, a snap-in strip, a filler material or a plastic tubing surrounding the wood pole.